Road Rage: Why We Lose It

In a new survey on which of 25 major U.S. cities have the most aggressive drivers, Miami dropped from 1st to 7th, Reuters reports. The Top 3:

New York

Dallas/Fort Worth

Detroit

Hey! My city should be No. 1. @#%$@#!

Yes, and it's exactly that attitude that gives us road rage.

While
no statistics are kept specifically on road rage, the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that aggressive driving
causes about a third of all crashes and about two-thirds of automobile
fatalities. And studies show it's not just total jerks who become
enraged.

But why does getting behind the wheel transform the meek and mild into raving, dangerous idiots?

What causes road rage?

Simple:
"Human beings are territorial ... The car is an extension of this
territory," according to AAA. True that. Plus, as a 2008 study found, humans crave violence just like sex. Watch out particularly for wide-faced men, known to be more aggressive than others.

There's
another factor: Negative actions play out bigger than positive acts,
University of Chicago researchers say. Feeling slighted can have a
bigger effect on how a person responds than being the recipient of
perceived generosity, the researchers found.

"For instance in
driving, if you are kind and let someone go in front of you, that
driver may be considerate in response. But if you cut someone off, that
person may react very aggressively, and this could escalate to road
rage," said University of Chicago psychology professor Boaz Keysar.
"Small slights could escalate to unbelievable, irrational feuds."

There's
even a disorder thought to be behind extreme cases of road rage among
some people: "intermittent explosive disorder, which is "characterized
by recurrent episodes of angry and potentially violent outbursts — seen
in cases of road rage or spousal abuse," wrote Ronald Kessler Harvard
Medical School and colleagues.

Intermittent explosive disorder
"has been found to be much more common than previously thought,"
Kessler and colleagues wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry
in 2006. "Depending upon how broadly it is defined, this disorder
affects as many as 7.3 percent of adults, or 16 million Americans, in
their lifetimes."

Attacks resulting from the disorder "are out
of proportion to the social stressors triggering them" and aren't
related to other mental disorders, according to the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. "People with this disorder
overreact to situations with uncontrollable rage, feel a sense of
relief during the angry outburst, and then feel remorseful about their
actions," Kessler and colleagues wrote.

The flipping of the
bird comes to mind. But it's not clear to me how the remorse is ever
manifested. I saw a woman shrug once just after she almost ran me over.

Times have changed

Americans can all be proud that "road rage" is a term that is believed to have originated in the United States, according to research by AAA. And while it's been around for decades, it is changing.

Road rage has gone high-tech. When AAA surveyed 526 motorists in 1995,
the biggest road-rage related complaint: tailgating. In the new survey, the biggest gripe: other drivers talking on cell phones.

Of course there's a difference between lousy driving (talking on the cell phone makes you as bad as a drunk driver), aggressive driving, and road rage. But on the road, where we're all being a little territorial, little things can escalate.

It's
quite possible you're as bad as the next guy. A decade ago, researchers
found that drivers who think they don't have a problem with anger while
driving can be just as angry and dangerous on the road as those who
know they are aggressive drivers. On that note, check out Edmunds.com's
list of 10 tips to avoid road rage, including my favorite: Your car is not a therapist.

In The Water Cooler, Imaginova's Editorial Director Robert Roy Britt looks at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond.Find more in the archives and on Twitter.

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Author Bio

Robert Roy Britt

Rob was a writer and editor at Space.com starting in 1999. He served as managing editor of Live Science at its launch in 2004. He is now Chief Content Officer overseeing media properties for the sites’ parent company, Purch. Prior to joining the company, Rob was an editor at The Star-Ledger in New Jersey, and in 1998 he was founder and editor of the science news website ExploreZone. He has a journalism degree from Humboldt State University in California.